A Single Disgruntled Return
by Kayka
Summary: Sarah's Christmas present is large and shoddily wrapped. The handcuffs and sparkly red bow really sell it, though. Sareth. Short one-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I checked again. I lament to say Labyrinth is still not mine.

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**A Single Disgruntled Return**

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Sarah hadn't thought much of muffled crashes in the wee hours of the morning. Any other day, she might have grabbed the closest blunt object and whaled on an unsuspecting burglar, but this was Christmas morning, and even burglars got a pass. Her little brother was the more likely culprit, however. Toby always loved getting up early, typically between four and five, to paw through his stocking and shake his off-limits wrapped presents before the 'old' folks so much as rolled over.

Therefore, it came as something of a surprise when Sarah toddled blearily into the family room to stop the kid from prematurely ripping into his presents and found her arch enemy bound and gagged underneath the tree, instead.

The Christmas lights flickered along merrily, in spite of the Goblin King's incongruous presence. It was not so striking an image as Sarah would have imagined it to be: the villain from her adolescence tied to a kitchen chair. This was largely because decorations and wrapping paper had been appropriated to create a patchwork of festivity over odd sections of the man's hair and clothing. He had also managed to fall asleep, and in repose lacked some of the intimidating air Sarah remembered. The goblins, as Sarah discovered by the tag attached to a forelock of the King's hair, were the benefactors behind this catastrophe in the making. They had even managed to plop a big, shiny bow on his ignoble head.

_Oh. Not technically gagged, after all,_ the young woman noted, once the initial shock wore off.

She inched closer to make out the writing on his duct taped mouth.

"Careful: Bitey." Sarah read, doubtfully.

She lingered, bemused, for a few moments before turning to the kitchen.

Sarah soon returned, and a dazzling flash lit up the room. An instant later the newly developing film popped out with a mechanical whir.

Sarah's gift snapped awake to deliver a baleful glare as he tried and failed to talk in spite of the duct tape.

_Ah, problem,_ her freshly awake brain pointed out.

If she wanted her holiday set to rights and goblin-free, Sarah would have to talk to the man. As it happened, Sarah did not particularly want to talk to him and would have been quite content to turn heel, crawl back into bed, and forget about the weirdness that would undoubtedly ensue. The only thing that stopped her was the prospect of the rest of her family members finding a festive, otherworldly king under the tree just as she did. Their reactions would probably lean toward police and a headache of explanation. Chaotic weirdness it was, then.

Sarah stepped closer and ripped the tape away, hopping back to a safe no-bitey-possible distance. To the king's credit, his yelp of pain was short and utterly dignified.

"Good to see you haven't lost your gentle touch," Jareth complained with no small amount of derision, "Now, release me."

_Mistake numero uno: removing the tape. Well, if he's going to be like that..._

"What's the magic word?" Sarah sing-songed.

"_Immediately_."

"Mmmm. So close."

Sarah made a show of scrutinizing the king. "I like your bow, by the way. It really adds panache to the whole-" she gestured at him vaguely with the hand still holding the camera. "Now, turn a little to your left. I want to get a good one."

The snarl he gifted her with instead made up for his lack of cooperation. _These are already priceless._

Flash.

"Wanna see? So far, this one's my favorite."

Sarah plucked one of her growing collection to wave in front of the Goblin King's face. The chair creaked with the rigid man astride it, and for a moment, Sarah worried about the structural integrity of the antique.

"_Destroy it_."

"Nah. After all these years, it's nice to know that I wasn't just a delusional teenager. I want to be able to relish this moment _forever_."

Flash.

"Stop that!"

He rocked forward against his bonds and succeeded in tipping the chair forward enough to fall over with a loud thud.

"What the hell!?" Sarah whispered in a voice bordering on shrill. "Are you _trying_ to wake everyone up? That just makes me want to help you _so_ much more."

Jareth appeared momentarily stunned by the impact as he collected his wits and rolled himself and the chair over on their side.

"Perhaps. The other members of your family might be kind enough to actually free me from this bondage."

"Oh, come _on_. Quit being so dramatic."

But his position marked a new and exciting angle in the Worst Present in the History of Forever Chronicle, and Sarah responded appropriately. Another flash was accompanied by a strangled roar from the lump on the floor.

"Did you seriously just growl at me? You _do_ know that I might be more apt to help you, if you were a bit nicer and quieter, right?"

The ugly snarl fell away as his expression blanked and reformed completely.

"Come now, Precious, these cuffs are chaffing."

From anyone else, it would have been a whine. But the Goblin King had somehow managed to turn pathetic whining into sultry cajoling. And _then_ he had the nerve to peek up at her from under his lashes.

"_Please,_" he added.

_I didn't mean puppy dog eyes. Especially not steamy puppy dog eyes._

"Fine," she sighed.

"We need to get you out of here before anyone else wakes up," she reasoned, partially to make herself feel better about relenting so easily, "Why did the goblins think this was a good idea, in the first place?"

"I've long since ceased to try fathoming goblin logic."

Sarah walked around to peer at his bonds. There was another note from her misguided benefactors warning, 'Careful: Frisky', but it was what the note was attached to that made her heart plummet somewhere down to the vicinity of her pancreas.

_Great._

"These are _handcuffs_."

"Really? I had no idea," he deadpanned.

"Well, how am I supposed to undo you?"

"With a key, naturally."

His lofty tone did little to improve her mood.

"But there's not a lock or anything! Where did they even _get_ handcuffs?"

"They're mine," Jareth groused.

She couldn't tell if he was more offended that his own tools had been used against him, or that it was, suddenly industrious, _goblins_ of all creatures that had managed to do so.

"You have four pairs of lockless... You know what? I _don't_ want to know."

"Ah, well, these are not the sets I generally use for entertaining," Jareth quipped.

Sarah chose to employ her excellent selective hearing and deleted that last comment before it reached the higher processing centers of her brain. That's what she told herself, at least. Several times. She ultimately chose to focus on the insurmountable task at hand.

"Can't you just magic them off?" It was the obvious sort of question that couldn't help but be asked. Like when someone called an appliance helpline and they asked if the non-functioning television or washing machine or blender was actually plugged in. Because every so often, it _wasn't_.

"Amazing! Now, why did I not think of that sooner! Why, we could have avoided this pleasant interlude altogether!" His grin was blithe and gratingly fake.

_The sarcasm is strong with this one. So, he can't, for some reason. _

"That's not helpful." Sarah stood and brushed the imaginary dust from her knees as she began to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

If her ears weren't completely faulty, Sarah might suspect that the Goblin King sounded worried. As amusing as leaving him to his fate could be, she was not an actively cruel person. That and she really, really didn't want to have a conversation with her dad about the guy tied to a chair in the living room.

"To get some WD-40."

"I beg your pardon?" Perceived offense was evident in his tone.

"Grease, Goblin King. I'm going to try to slip your hands out."

"You intend to sully my gloves with this Aboveground concoction? You most certainly _will not_."

"We could always just try breaking your hands instead," the woman called back cheerfully as she secured the combination squeaky hinge fixer, toilet bowl cleaner, and hopefully, handcuff-removing formula.

Tentative solution in hand, Sarah got him to consent to removal of the gloves instead. Working the leather off had been the opposite of easy, and became markedly more difficult once she noticed how nice his hands were. And if Sarah's touch lingered for longer than was strictly necessary in pulling the things off, Jareth at least had the grace not to comment on it. Yet, anyway.

She was holding out hope that if she could get at least one limb free, he could take over responsibility for the other three.

Of course, where the Goblin King was concerned, nothing was ever simple.

"Agh!" It was another in the latest series of near-shouts. The fact that no one had come to investigate yet was faintly astounding.

"My arm is numb!"

"Suck it up. We're over halfway there."

"At least sit me up-right."

"You're heavy, I'm tired, and really, you brought this on yourself."

Progress was agonizingly slow, but her solution seemed to be working. She just needed his thumb to go in a bit more.

"What are you doing!? It doesn't _go_ that way!"

"But if I just squeeze it a little bit more, maybe..."

"Aagh! _Sarah_!" Jareth moaned in pain. But to the casual observer-

"Sarah, whatever it is you choose to do behind closed doors is your own business, but I'd appreciate it if you would choose a more traditional approach to introducing your boyfriend to the family."

Sarah froze, knelt over a strange man in the near-dark, as her stepmother made her presence known. The young woman knew what this looked like.

"He's not- We _weren't_!"

_This so isn't happening. Please, let me be dreaming._

"Sarah," Karen said in that sharp tone that made her feel like a teenager all over again. "I was young, once. I know what's going on here."

"You really, really don't-"

But her step-mother cut her off, wanting to hear nothing other than the conclusion she had already come to.

"I'm going to start breakfast and wake the others. I expect you both to be presentable and ready to hand out presents in five minutes."

And with that, she left the pair alone. Sarah collapsed to the floor, her undertaking no longer seeming so urgent any longer.

"Well, that could not have gone more swimmingly, if I do say so myself."

"You heard her coming, didn't you? You did that whole moaning thing on _purpose._" she accused.

"Sarah, Sarah, whyever would I aim to embarrass you in front of your family?"

But Sarah's mind had already jumped to its next frantic thought.

"Oh, dear God. She's going to have you stay for presents _and_ breakfast." _And painful, untrue explanations._

"Excellent," Jareth affirmed, "then we shan't be needing these any longer."

The cuffs, all four sets, fell away with a clink before vanishing completely. Jareth stood before her, sprightly, even in his suddenly subdued, but pristine-Aboveground-appropriate, attire.

"Now, let's start sorting the gifts, shall we?"

Sarah's unflattering Polaroids would circulate the whole of the Labyrinth and beyond by the end of the day, she would make sure of it.

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**A/N:** Holy bajeebers, I actually finished something. (More or less. There's a quick doodle that goes with it that I haven't finished. I'll put it up as the story cover with a larger version on Tumblr, once I do.)

I'm trying to get back in the swing of actually writing, so here's this less than fantastic little holiday thing inspired by a Tumblr post about waking up and finding your favorite fictional character under the Christmas tree. The idea amused me. I took some liberties. Yes, it's open ended. I'm hard-pressed to write a one-shot that isn't. That's not to say that I'll never add a follow-up, but at the rate I tend to get things written, I'd say it might be up next Christmas, if it happens ever, at all.

And finally, the title for this is based on/corrupted from the saying, "Many Happy Returns." Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!


End file.
